This invention relates to mattress making machinery and in particular to a Tape Edge Closing machine. The present invention is particularly suitable for incorporation with tape edge closing machines as described in my co-pending application Ser. No. 671,870 filed Mar. 30, 1976, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,282, but it will be understood that other such machines may be used.
It is a well known process to close a mattress by sewing along its top edge, thereby joining the edge of the panel to the edge of the border boxing with the inter-position of a re-inforcing tape. With the modern construction of mattresses requiring the mattress cover to be under tension immediately after the aforementioned closing operation, the greater this tension is, the greater the difficulty which the operator of the tape edge closing machine will experience.
The object of this invention is to provide a mechanism carried with the sewing head and which when applied to the surface of the mattress, in conjunction with the movement of the surface of the mattress relative to the sewing head, will relieve the aforementioned tension and assist the operator to feed the edges of the top panel and side boxing of the mattress into the mouth of the sewing machine.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a mattress tape edge closing machine comprising a sewing machine movable relative to a mattress on a carrier therefor, a de-tensioning apparatus carried with the sewing machine and having a first wheel in advance of the sewing head of the machine and being selectively movable into and out of engagement with the upper surface of a mattress in the carrier. Preferably the wheel is cylindrical and has its axis disposed horizontally the plane of the wheel being at an angle to the direction of relative movement between the mattress and the sewing machine. A second wheel may be carried by the apparatus to be movable towards and away from the mattress in register with the sewing head. Advantageously the second wheel is movable between upper and lower mattress engaging positions. The first wheel may be arranged to move with the second wheel between upper and lower mattress engaging positions and in addition be movable out of engagement with the mattress while the second wheel remains in engagement with the mattress.
Preferably both wheels are movable together towards and away from the mattress independently of relative movement between them.